


The B-Team

by wereworm



Series: Slightly Left Field [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, fills in the gap after they follow the abomination to the gate and the next morning, gimme more of em, i love this trio so much, me chanting b-team b-team b-team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 11:38:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19393363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wereworm/pseuds/wereworm
Summary: Zeke is in a clearing in the Monongahela forest with Hollis and Duck Newton looking for Bigfoot and it's one of the weirdest days of his life.





	The B-Team

**Author's Note:**

> guess who barely proofread this? it was me.. i had bad writers block but i wanted to get this out.

When they rush into the clearing and the monster isn’t there, Zeke immediately starts checking the perimeter to see which direction it may have gone. He leans over and starts scanning the ground for tracks but sees nothing. He follows the edge of the clearing around and ends up standing near Hollis, who seems to have had the same idea as he did. He looks up at them to see if Hollis has seen anything but they just shrug. _Fuck, they lost it._ Remembering the third member of their little group, Zeke chucks a quick look over his shoulder to see what Duck’s doing and nearly stops dead at what he sees.

Duck’s face is pale, paler than Zeke’s ever seen it but when he follows Duck’s gaze, he sees nothing but the dense forest and low shrubbery. After a moment, Duck shakes his head and turns away from whatever he was staring at and Zeke quickly averts his gaze. A few seconds later, he hears the quiet crunch of Duck’s footsteps against the dried leaves and small twigs on the ground as he comes closer to where Zeke and Hollis are standing. His footsteps are quiet, quieter than Zeke’s and he is jealous for a moment before he remembers the rumours about Duck. About how Duck had always seemed to be connected to the forest that no one else was. About how the forest changed for him in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Though, considering that they had been following Bigfoot through the forest, Zeke supposes that it could, in fact, be possible.

“Hey, Duck? You doin’ okay?” Zeke asks and Hollis spins around to face Duck.

Duck smiles nervously, “Uh, yeah. Just thought I saw something.”

His gaze goes distant again and he keeps staring into the forest and the noises of the forest suddenly seem much louder and more threatening. Zeke rubs his hands together and brings them up to his mouth to blow on them. It’s getting cold. He stares up at the sky and is almost surprised to note the streaks of red that lance across it and the rapidly disappearing sun.

“I think we should head back,” Duck says, vocalising what Zeke had been thinking.

He shrugs, “Sounds good to me. I think this is a dead end anyway.”

Hollis is scowling, their face determined as they bite out, “Whatever this thing is killed my people – your people, Sheriff Owens – and you’re going to just give up and turn in for the night?”

“Woah,” Duck’s hands come up and he moves in between them, acting as almost a barrier.

“Hollis, I understand that you’re angry and probably scared but it’s getting dark and we don’t know much about this thing,” He closes one of his raised hands and, with each point he makes, he punctuates it by lifting a finger back up, “Does this thing have night-vision? What does it want? What are its weaknesses, if it has any? Will it kill us if we stay in the forest after it gets dark?”

He pauses as if to think for a moment before saying, “Actually we know the answer to that last one because I am almost certain that the abomination will kill us if we stay here.”

Hollis’ shoulders are hunched and even in the dying light, the Hornets emblem stands out against the dark jacket. Their hands are in tight fists by their sides but after a moment they exhale slowly and their shoulders loosen, “Okay, but you have to clear some shit up for me.”

They raise an eyebrow and Duck nods. It had been clear that Duck was involved in this whole mess but the fact that both Hollis and Duck knew more about what was going on than he did leaves a bitter taste in Zeke’s mouth. He’s the sheriff, he’s tasked to protect the people of Kepler and yet it’s some dinky park ranger and the leader of a stunt gang who knows what’s happening with the monsters.

Zeke grits his teeth and bites out, “Yeah, it’d be nice to be in the know.”

Duck looks at him, surprised, and replies, “I’ll tell you everything you need to know, but we gotta get going now. It’s not safe at night.”

There’s something ominous in the way he says it but the thing that really convinces Zeke is the hand Duck keeps tightly wrapped around his damn blade. Zeke’s seen a lot of blades in his time as sheriff but Duck’s is one of the more interesting ones. It’s one of the most elegant weapons he’s ever seen but the mouth is truly one of the most gaudy, ugly things he’s seen, and Zeke can’t help but wonder whose idea that was. And, as bad as the mouth is, the voice that comes out – and the fact that it has a voice – is so much worse. In response to Duck’s stiff posture and the way he cautiously looks around the clearing, Zeke rests a hand on the service revolver on his hip, ready to draw. Hollis’ eyes flicker between them and tightens their grasp on the rebar club ever so slightly.

“We can go to your place,” Hollis says.

“We can?” Duck mutters before shrugging.

Taking it as an affirmative, Zeke says, “I’ve got my car parked a while back. We can head there and drive to yours.”

Zeke peers around the clearing but every tree looks the same to him and he can’t remember where he entered the clearing, let alone where he parked the car.

He frowns and continues, “Not that I know where I left it.”

Hollis curses under their breath and adds, “I don’t know where my bike is either.”

They both turn to Duck and see him slowly looking around, just like Zeke had done moments ago. He points in a direction, seemingly randomly and says, “That way.”

Duck turns and starts walking, not giving Zeke or Hollis the chance to protest. After a pause where Zeke looks to Hollis for guidance and Hollis to him, Hollis just shrugs and follows after him. It takes barely a second for Zeke to follow suit; he’s not getting left behind with Bigfoot still rampaging about.

“So, do you know where you’re going?” Zeke prompts as the three of them quickly walk through the forest.

“Not exactly,” Duck responds, and when he sees the look on Zeke’s face, continues, “I don’t consciously know which way to walk but it doesn’t matter so long as I do walk. The forest will get me where I need to go.”

His tone is flat and casual, as if it’s perfectly logical for a man to believe the forest will guide him. If he had said this yesterday, Zeke would have ridden him off as just another kook but then again, if monsters are real why couldn’t sentient forest be real?

“I thought you said that you’d caught us up to speed,” Hollis says pointedly and Duck casts a quick look in their direction.

“We were pursuing a monster in the forest and you wanted me to tell you everything?”

Zeke opens his mouth, but Duck looks at him and says, “Come now, we’re trying to leave the forest without the monster following us.”

Zeke scowls at Duck and pushes forward, not overtaking Duck but walking a few feet behind him. From his new position, Zeke watches in amazement as the ground flattens into something smooth and easy to walk over, sticks moving off to the side, and the way the very trees themselves seem to lean in towards Duck as he passes by. With each step he takes, Zeke’s foot sinks a bit into the muddy ground before coming loose again with some effort when he lifts his foot. A look to his side shows Hollis to be similarly struggling while Duck is just gliding along the ground, his feet barely leaving a mark with each step. Duck’s beginning to move ahead of them now, walking with a sense of purpose that wasn’t there before. His hands, however, are dangling freely by his side and there’s something disconnected between the way he’s walking and the laxness of the rest of his body.

“Hey!” Hollis calls out and Zeke watches intently as Duck’s hands slowly twitch before balling up.

He turns back to face them and his face is cold and distant. There’s something almost ethereal or otherworldly about him as Duck looks at them; it’s something subliminal that Zeke can’t put his finger on but it’s undoubtedly there. As he scans Duck, he notices that his sword is oddly quiet, the lips of the infernal thing pursed tightly shut. His eyes, too, are shining oddly brightly in the light and have a faint green hue to them. As he’s watching, Duck blinks a few times before clearing his throat.

“We need to keep moving,” He says.

“We don’t know where that thing is, so why are you rushing?” Hollis asks.

Duck casts a wary look around the area.

“It can come back. This one’s the smartest one we’ve fought so far and we don’t know anything about it so we need to keep moving.”

Hollis lets out a huff and starts trudging along again. They pass Duck and while they’re not petty enough to actually shoulder past him, the intent is still very clear. Duck pivots slightly to watch as Hollis walks before sending a confused look in Zeke’s direction. Zeke starts walking and as he passes Duck he pauses to see if he’s going to follow before continuing. He does and after a moment Duck speaks.

“I get why they’re upset. I mean The Hornets got hit hard, they lost a couple people and now Hollis is finding out about the monster problem in Kepler. I know I didn’t handle the last part all that well, ignoring the rest of the shit they’re dealing with,” Duck muses and Zeke keeps his eyes fixed forward on Hollis’ figure as they move in between the trees.

“They’re still pretty young,” Zeke adds. “Lot of stress for someone as young as Hollis.”

Duck hums in agreement.

“And how are you handling it?” Duck asks after a moment. “Sheriff’s gotta come with a lot of responsibilities. You may not have known the people like Hollis did but they’re still your people.”

Zeke sighs, “I thought it was a simple case. Find the bastard, arrest ‘em, done and dusted. But now I’m traipsing through the forest with Hollis and Duck Newton.”

Duck lets out a quiet laugh.

“I didn’t expect to find myself here either. It’s a pretty weird coincidence for us all to come together like that.”

“Not any weirder than you and the rest of your friends. How did you even get into the whole business?”

Duck’s eyes flicker towards Zeke for a moment before looking back ahead of him.

“I won’t go into too much detail because Hollis will want to know but we ran into each other in the forest. In the clearing we were in before actually. What a weird coincidence.”

Zeke whistles, “You don’t say.”

Up ahead, Hollis turns around and gestures impatiently for them to hurry up.

Duck sighs and mutters, “Youth,” before speeding up.

After catching up, Duck takes point again and it’s not that much later that they’re at Zeke’s car. It’s sitting innocuously exactly where he left it, not a thing out of place as far as Zeke can remember. Something feels weird about it though, and he slides into his seat cautiously. His eyes are focused on the forest in front of him. Ned Chicane may be a crook but at least his Saturday Night Dead broadcasts came in handy in refreshing Zeke’s memory of movie tropes. If he remembered correctly, the monster would come for them again as they’re getting in the car and the car would be unable to start. He knows it probably won’t happen but if monsters are real, he’d like them to work by movie logic rather than actual logic. He hears Duck say something about how age comes before beauty as he turns on the ignition.

The passenger door opens and Duck slides in, looking somewhat triumphant. The back door opens and Hollis clambers into the backseat with a disgruntled expression on their face. Zeke revs the engine and slowly pulls away from the forest, following the road back down to the main street of Kepler.

“Where did you live again, Duck?” Zeke asks.

Duck opens his mouth to reply but Hollis leans in between the two chairs and says, “Are we gonna start talking about the whole deal now?”

Duck shrugs, and Zeke swallows down his annoyance. He’s so passive that Zeke finds it’s hard to believe that he is supposedly defending Kepler from a threat that Zeke, a trained professional could not. He doesn’t seem to have the right mental frame for his line of work let alone the ability. If Zeke were feeling nice, he would describe Duck as stout and he definitely does not think Duck’s ruthless enough to be out fighting crime. Despite how poorly suited Duck seems for this lifestyle, his blasé attitude gives him a certain level of trust, for the circumstances.

“What do you wanna know?”

“This monster, it’s the one that attacked the bar?” Hollis asks.

“Yep.”

“How long has it been around before that?”

“Not very,” Duck sends Zeke a curious look, “Unless there was another instance that we didn’t hear about.”

 _We._ Duck Newton, Aubrey Little, and Ned Chicane. They’re an odd group with little in common, except for monster hunting apparently. Duck and Ned were already friends so it somewhat made sense that if one of them got sucked in, the other would, too. However, Aubrey’s only been living in Kepler for a few months. At the start, Zeke had pegged her as a woman who wouldn’t want to settle down and wanted to explore the world in her prime but, as the months dragged by and Aubrey kept staying in the Amnesty Lodge, Zeke had come to think of her as another one of the citizens of Kepler. He’s not sure if it’s because of the magic tricks or the company she keeps at the Lodge, but Aubrey doesn’t feel out of place in Kepler.

To deny Kepler’s weirdness would be impossible and faintly ridiculous. Zeke had taken enough statements over the years and seen enough unexplainable events to feel like he’s on the set of The X-Files. Kepler is an odd place with odd happenings and odd people. Zeke had never paid much attention to the weird rumours that floated about, sure that if it was an actual problem, he would have heard of it. Seems like he needs to rethink his ways though, if the monsters had managed to stay undetected for so long.

“There wasn’t,” Zeke says and peels off the main road onto one of the smaller ones that leads to the rough area where Duck lives, if he remembers correctly.

They’re just passing down a smaller street that runs relatively closely to the end of town when Duck says, “Just up there.”

He’s pointing at one of the apartment complexes and Zeke looks it over quickly, trying to see if there’s any signs of the lifestyle Duck’s living. There isn’t. The grass is well-kept, the path leading up to the different apartments are clean, and the curtains are drawn back. As they pull up to the curb, Hollis quickly jumps out and Duck follows after a moment, leaving Zeke behind as he locks the car before joining them on one of the paths that leads to the bottom left apartment.

Duck fiddles with his keys for a bit, picking out the right one before slotting it into the hole and unlocking his apartment. He quickly walks in and squats with his arms out in front of him. Before Zeke can even ask what he’s doing, there’s a flash of movement as a cat dashes down the hallway and into Duck’s arms. He stands back up and off to the side, letting them come inside. Hollis walks in first, eyes steadfastly kept forward. Their dedication and concentration is admirable; Zeke is already distracted looking at the home around him.

There aren’t any decorations or family photos lining the walls of the hallway and when Zeke walks into the living room, it looks equally impersonal. The furniture is plain and utterly sensible. The coffee tables are bare; there’s nothing that gives anything away about the sort of person Duck is. There’s a small fireplace and on the mantle above, there’s the first personal thing Zeke has seen. A set of framed photos.

Zeke wanders over to them and peers closely. The one furthest to the left is of Duck and a young woman with the same brown hair and kind smile; his sister probably. _Oh, what was her name again?_ In the middle is a photo of Duck in this apartment. He’s sitting on the same couch that’s behind Zeke now, looking maybe five or so years younger. On his left is Mrs. Pearson and to his right Leo Tarkesian. Duck’s cat is sprawled carelessly over their laps and they look so absolutely happy that Zeke starts smiling himself. The third one is the most recent one and Duck is standing in the Amnesty Lodge. There’s a fire roaring in the hearth and Aubrey Little is standing with her arms slung around Ned and Duck. There’s a loose comfort and ease in their stance that makes it look as if they’ve been friends for years, not months.

“Do you guys have a team name or something?” Zeke asks.

The following silence suggests that Duck and Hollis had been talking about something before he interrupted.

It lasts for a few beats longer before Duck replies, “We’re the Pine Guard.”

Zeke hums and turns away from the mantle. Hollis and Duck are sitting on the couch, angled towards each other. Zeke quickly crosses to the armchair and sits down. His eyes meet Duck’s and he sees, for the first time, the absolute exhaustion within them.

“This time when you explain everything, please explain _everything_ ,” Zeke says.

Duck sighs, a tired and slightly fed up noise, and then starts explaining.

*

At the start, it was mainly just Duck explaining everything – Sylvain and the abominations and the Pine Guard – while Zeke and Hollis asked questions. Then, they started discussing the current abomination and the plans for the future. Hollis had wanted to close the gate for good, to stop any more abominations from coming through but Duck had been quick to remind the of the kind Sylvans who hadn’t been anything but kind. The discussions had gone late into the night and Hollis had left some time after twelve after confirming a meeting tomorrow. Zeke had elected to stay for Duck’s offer of coffee and now they’re sitting on the front steps of his apartment, sipping at some semi-decent coffee.

“Aren’t you scared?” Zeke asks, breaking the relaxing silence that he settled over them.

Duck smiles, “Shitless.”

“But you’re the chosen one?”

“ _I_ didn’t choose it, I was forced into it,” He lets out a bitter laugh, “I actually rejected it several times.”

“Then why are you here?”

Duck bites his lip, “I chose the Pine Guard; I chose Ned and Aubrey and everyone else.”

Zeke nods, and falls silent again. Loyalty is something he can understand. With a family of his own, Zeke knows he will gladly lay down his life to defeat this monster if it means they’ll be safe.

“I never thought I’d be here, drinking coffee with you,” Duck says and Zeke laughs.

“Can’t say I did either. Then again, I barely knew you.”

“Oh?”

“Duck Newton: had a soft spot for the forest and blueberry muffins.”

Duck snorts.

“Oh, come on, how much do you remember?”

Duck hums thoughtfully for a moment, “I remember you would always be picked for team captain and you would pick people equally, even the less athletic kids.”

Zeke frowns, he remembers that Duck used to have an inhaler, but it had been years since he’d seen it and _what sort of chosen one had asthma?_ Zeke hears Duck stifle a yawn and he quickly checks his watch and groans.

“The missus is gonna be mad I’m coming home so late.”

Duck grins at him, a glint of teeth in moonlight, “I would sympathise with you but this is of your own making.”

“Bah,” Zeke articulates, “I’ll catch you at the meeting then?”

“Yep. Bring muffins.”

“Sure,” Zeke says and walks to his car, unlocking it and getting in.

Grabbing his notebook, he jots down ‘blueberry muffins’ and turns on the engine. As he’s pulling away, he sees Duck standing silhouetted in the light from his apartment, watching him drive away. Duck Newton may be an enigma to Zeke, but he doesn’t seem to be a bad guy and, if Zeke had to go monster hunting again, he’d like to work with Duck and Hollis if possible. They were probably no Pine Guard, but he thinks they made a pretty good team.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr, im neverdoingmuch. i'd love to talk to y'all if you wanna talk to me.


End file.
